Hear from Our Customers
You’re not looking for another vendor who promises tight tolerances and then ships parts that need cleanup. You need cuts that hold +/- 0.005 inches without warping, hardening, or leaving oxidized edges that delay your next step.
Waterjet cutting metal doesn’t use heat. That means no thermal distortion on structural beams, no brittleness on aerospace components, and no grinding down edges before welding or painting. The cut is clean. The material properties stay intact. And in most cases, there’s no secondary finishing required at all.
If you’re working with steel, aluminum, stainless, or thick plate and you’re tired of dealing with burn marks, tool wear, or parts that don’t match the print, this is the process that fixes it. You send specs, we cut to them, and what you get back works the first time.
We serve manufacturers, fabricators, and contractors across Southold, NY and the surrounding tri-state area. We’re not a massive production facility trying to squeeze your job between high-volume runs. We’re a waterjet metal cutting shop that handles custom work, tight deadlines, and the kind of specs that require actual attention.
Southold sits in the heart of Long Island’s industrial corridor, where metal fabrication has been a backbone industry for decades. That means the customers we work with aren’t experimenting with waterjet for the first time—they know what good cutting looks like, and they know when a shop is cutting corners. We don’t.
If you need brackets, flanges, panels, or prototype parts cut from material that can’t handle heat, we’re set up to do it right. CNC metal waterjet cutting with the control systems and experience to back it up.
You send us your drawings or CAD files with material specs and tolerances. We program the cut using CNC-controlled waterjet systems that follow your design exactly—no tooling changes, no heat, no shortcuts.
The waterjet uses high-pressure water mixed with abrasive garnet to cut through your material. It handles steel, aluminum, stainless, titanium, copper, and composites without changing the material’s properties. Thick plate up to 10 inches? Not a problem. Complex geometries or tight inside corners? The stream is precise enough to navigate them without leaving rough edges or requiring secondary machining.
Once the cut is complete, parts come off the table clean. No HAZ. No oxidation. No burrs that need grinding. If your application requires tapping small holes or welding along the cut edge, you can do it immediately. That’s the difference between waterjet and thermal cutting—you’re not spending extra time or money fixing what the cutting process damaged.
We can also stack multiple sheets and cut them simultaneously, which keeps per-part costs down when you’re running production quantities. You get the parts on time, to spec, and ready for whatever comes next in your process.
Ready to get started?
Every custom metal waterjet cutting job starts with your specifications. We’re cutting to your tolerances, your material requirements, and your timeline. If you’re in Southold, NY or anywhere in the tri-state area, you’re working with a shop that understands local turnaround expectations and the industries we serve here—aerospace suppliers, commercial contractors, industrial manufacturers, and custom fabricators who can’t afford to wait weeks for parts.
You get cuts with no heat-affected zones, which means no hardness changes, no warping, and no temper loss. The edges are smooth enough that many applications skip buffing entirely. If you’re working with reflective metals like aluminum or copper that give lasers trouble, waterjet handles them without issue.
Southold’s location on Long Island puts us in range of the region’s densest manufacturing activity. That’s not an accident—it’s why we’re here. Metal fabrication shops in Suffolk County have been serving the tri-state area for over fifty years, and the standards haven’t dropped. If anything, tolerances have gotten tighter and timelines shorter. Waterjet cutting keeps up because it’s fast, flexible, and doesn’t require the kind of setup time that slows down other processes.
Whether you’re prototyping a new design or running a repeat order for production components, the process stays consistent. Same tolerances. Same edge quality. Same turnaround.
We cut ferrous and nonferrous metals—steel, stainless steel, aluminum, titanium, copper, brass, and specialty alloys. Waterjet also handles composites and layered materials without delamination, which makes it useful for aerospace and industrial applications where material integrity matters.
The process works on brittle materials that would crack under mechanical cutting and ductile materials that would deform under heat. If you’re not sure whether your material is a good fit, the short answer is: it probably is. Waterjet doesn’t rely on hardness or thermal conductivity to make the cut, so it’s one of the most versatile processes available.
Thickness isn’t usually a limiting factor either. We routinely cut plate up to several inches thick, and in some cases, waterjet can handle material over 10 inches. The cut stays accurate even on thick stock because there’s no heat buildup or tool deflection to throw off dimensions.
Laser cutting is fast and works well on thinner materials, especially steel. But it creates a heat-affected zone that oxidizes edges, hardens the material, and often requires secondary cleanup before welding or painting. If you’re cutting aluminum or copper, lasers struggle with reflectivity and can produce inconsistent results.
Waterjet cutting metal is a cold process. No heat means no oxidation, no hardened edges, and no thermal distortion. The part that comes off the table is the same part you designed—no warping, no brittleness, no loss of temper. That’s critical if you’re working with structural components, aerospace parts, or anything that needs to maintain specific material properties.
Waterjet also cuts thicker material more effectively than laser. Once you get past a couple inches, laser cutting slows down significantly and edge quality suffers. Waterjet maintains speed and accuracy even on thick plate. The tradeoff is that waterjet has a slightly wider kerf than laser, but for most applications, that’s not an issue—and the benefits of no HAZ and no secondary finishing more than make up for it.
For most materials under 2 inches thick, we hold tolerances of +/- 0.005 inches without issue. That’s tight enough for the majority of industrial, aerospace, and custom fabrication work. If your application requires even tighter tolerances in specific areas, we can often achieve +/- 0.001 inches on critical dimensions with proper setup and toolpath optimization.
The key advantage of CNC metal waterjet cutting is consistency. Because there’s no tool wear, no heat distortion, and no mechanical deflection, the first part in a run cuts the same as the last part. You’re not dealing with drift or dimensional changes as the job progresses, which is a common problem with processes that rely on consumable tooling or generate heat.
Tolerances also stay consistent across different materials. Whether you’re cutting aluminum, stainless, or titanium, the process doesn’t change and neither does the accuracy. That makes waterjet a reliable choice when you’re working with mixed materials or running jobs that require repeatable results across multiple production runs.
In most cases, no. Waterjet produces smooth edges with no burrs, no oxidation, and no heat-affected zones. Many parts come off the table ready for welding, tapping, or assembly without any additional work. That’s one of the biggest time and cost savings compared to laser or plasma cutting, which almost always require cleanup before the next operation.
If your application involves painting or powder coating, waterjet-cut edges don’t need chemical or mechanical cleaning to remove oxidation. The surface is clean and ready for finishing. If you’re welding along the cut edge, you’re not dealing with hardened material that eats through tooling or creates inconsistent welds.
There are some applications where light deburring or edge smoothing is specified for aesthetic reasons or to meet specific finish requirements, but that’s the exception, not the rule. The baseline edge quality from waterjet is high enough that secondary operations are optional, not mandatory. That keeps your lead times shorter and your costs lower, especially on jobs where you’re cutting dozens or hundreds of parts.
Waterjet cutting typically runs between $30 and $35 per hour in operating costs, which is competitive with other precision cutting methods—especially when you factor in the elimination of secondary finishing. If you’re comparing it to laser cutting, the per-hour rate might look similar, but waterjet saves you the cost of grinding, deburring, and cleaning oxidized edges. Those secondary operations add up fast, both in labor and in turnaround time.
For thicker materials, waterjet is often more cost-effective than wire EDM. Waterjet can finish a profile cut up to 10 times faster than EDM, and while EDM has its place for ultra-precise or intricate work, waterjet handles the bulk of thick-plate cutting more economically. In many cases, using waterjet for the rough cut and then incorporating a second operation for critical surfaces is still cheaper and faster than running the entire job through EDM.
The other cost factor is material waste. Waterjet has a narrow kerf and doesn’t create large heat-affected zones that need to be trimmed away, so you’re using more of your raw material. When you’re working with expensive alloys or specialty metals, that material savings adds up over the course of a project. You’re also not replacing consumable tooling or dealing with tool wear, which keeps costs predictable from job to job.
Yes. CNC waterjet systems don’t require lengthy setup or tooling changes, which means we can move quickly from programming to cutting. If you need parts in a hurry and the specs are clear, we can usually accommodate tight timelines without sacrificing accuracy or edge quality.
The advantage of being located in Southold, NY is proximity to the tri-state area’s manufacturing and industrial centers. If you’re in Suffolk County or anywhere on Long Island, lead times for delivery are short. We’re not shipping parts across the country or waiting days for freight—most local jobs turn around fast because the logistics are simple.
Rush work doesn’t mean we’re cutting corners. The process stays the same: CNC-controlled cuts, no heat distortion, and tolerances that match your specs. Waterjet is inherently fast for complex shapes because there’s no need to stop and change tooling or adjust for different materials. We program the cut, load the material, and let the machine run. That efficiency is what makes quick turnarounds possible without compromising the quality of the finished part.
Local Resources
Useful Links
Other Services we provide in Southold
